Housing bills get legislative seal of approval

Public safety and consumer protection took center stage late yesterday  in a package of housing-related bills the House of Representatives sent across the rotunda for Senate consideration.

Topping the list was House Bill 1529. Involving the disclosure of information by landlords in the screening of potential tenants, the measure is aimed at preventing discrimination against the victims of domestic violence when they are seeking housing.

House Bill 1647 requires that landlords exercise appropriate care and safety when they are keeping copies of any master keys or duplicate keys for the dwellings they manage. Three years ago a maintenance man used a key from a landlord's office to enter a woman's apartment in Richland and sexually assaulted the tenant.

House Bill 1617 makes permanent the 2011-2013 caps set on administrative costs for the Housing Assistance Program and the Affordable Housing Program in the Department of Commerce. The goal in the bill is to ensure a steady and predictable stream of revenue for administering these programs.

House Bill 1170 updates the property-tax-exemption program to help make sure that folks on fixed incomes -- such as low-income senior citizens, as well as disabled veterans and other people in need -- aren’t being taxed out of their homes.

House Bill 1853clarifies that licensed real-estate brokers are independent contractors. State law would thus exempt real-estate brokers, managing brokers, and designated brokers from overtime requirements, unless a broker is specifically designated as an employee in his or her contract with a real-estate firm.

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Got housing issues? Maybe we can help!

The economy is getting better and our unemployment rate is lower than it has been in years, but times are still tough, and one of the hardest hit areas is housing. This session we passed bills that will help the homeless, provide housing assistance, and lend a hand to homeowners in crisis.

We’re supporting proven services that reduce homelessness with HB 2048, which expands highly successful programs that provide services for the homeless. On any given day, 23,000 people are homeless in Washington. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney, will raise $126 million over the next five years for state and local homeless programs via a $10 increase in certain document recording fees.

With the passage of HB 2640, we’re improving the cost-effectiveness of housing assistance. This measure will help Housing Trust Fund dollars go further by emphasizing cost-effectiveness of investments. It requires the Housing Trust Fund to consider both total costs and the cost of housing per unit when reviewing applications for funding.

HB 2614, sponsored by Rep.Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney, is a comprehensive bill aimed at helping homeowners in crisis by providing alternatives, remedies, and assistance. This measure brings clarity to the short-sale process. A short sale is when a lender accepts a discount on a mortgage to avoid foreclosure. But in some cases the homeowner is still on the hook for the outstanding debt.  HB 2614 creates a notice mechanism so that homeowners are informed if the lender/bank will still collect what’s left of the debt after the home is sold, and it reduces the amount of time, from six to three years, that lenders have to pursue homeowners for remaining debts.

To further help struggling homeowners, HB 2614 was amended to include the provisions of two other consumer protection bills that got stuck in the legislative process:

Rep. Tina Orwall’s HB 2421 makes important changes to the Foreclosure Fairness Act of 2011 to make the mediation program run more smoothly, and streamline the demands on lenders:

• Meet and confer process can be over the phone.

• More time for scheduling mediations.

• More time (120 days instead of 90) between the notice of sale and the trustee sale.

Sen. Adam Kline’s SB 6515 provides remedies for when a home is lost due to mistakes in the trustee sale. Currently, if you lose your home because of a mistake in the foreclosure process, it is impossible to get it back. These provisions allow for the trustee sale to be void if:

• There was an error in the foreclosure sale process.

• There was an agreement for a loan modification or other agreement to postpone the sale.

• The services accepted funds to satisfy the loan when they had no legal duty to do so.

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Rep. Finn wraps up housing tour in Centralia

Rep. Fred Finn recently went on a tour of Housing Trust Fund facilities in and around the 35th Legislative District. These facilities, which included emergency shelters, low-income housing and farmworker housing, were all constructed with help from the Housing Trust Fund, which is part of the Capital Budget. The Trust Fund provides loans and grants for the acquisition, construction and rehabilitation of housing for low-income or at-risk populations. The facilities are often operated and managed by non-profit organizations.

On Tuesday, Rep. Finn visited two farmworker housing facilities in the city of Centralia. Although Centralia falls outside of his district, he met with affordable housing advocates at Villa los Milagros and Villa San Juan Bautista because he is also vice chair of the House Community Development & Housing committee. As part of his interim work on the committee, he is visiting various housing projects and listening to the needs and concerns of both those who run them and those who reside in them.

The availability of safe, affordable housing for farmworkers is vitally important for Washington's economy. Our state's multi-billion-dollar agricultural industry depends on the availability of labor to cultivate, harvest and process our crops and other products. Without an adequate supply of housing, farmworkers often end up living in crowded, unsafe conditons that pose health and safety risks to themselves and to the communities they live in.

But when workers have a safe place to live, everyone is better off. Besides the security and stability of the housing, activities like ESL courses and homeownership classes are often offered on site, helping residents better integrate into their communities and assisting them on the path to financial independence. Gina Morales, the property manager at Villa San Juan Bautista, said that when residents leave her facility, it's usually because they have been able to purchase their own home.

The current Capital Budget allocated $3 million over the next two years for farmworker housing within the Housing Trust Fund. In previous biennia, the Legislature has been able to set aside nearly three times as much. The Villa los Milagros project received a loan of about $1.5 million from the Trust Fund several years ago; Villa San Juan Bautista received about $1.8 million. It's easy to see that with just $3 million in the Trust Fund, it will be difficult to meet the continuing demand for affordable farmworker housing projects in our state over the next couple of years.

Photo: Rep. Finn talks with Rob van Tassell, VP of Housing and Community Development for Catholic Housing Services of Western Washington. CHS built and operates both Villa los Milagros and Villa San Juan Bautista.

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Orwall gets Housing Hero Award for Foreclosure Mediation bill

The Washington Low Income Housing Alliance recently presented the 2011 Housing hero Award to State Rep. Tina Orwall for her outstanding legislative work to lend homeowners a helping hand in the midst of Washington state’s worst foreclosure crisis.

“It was a great honor to receive this award,” said the Des Moines Democrat. “I am very proud of our work to create a fair process to protect homeowners and keep them in their homes whenever possible. I am grateful to the large group of stakeholders who worked tirelessly to make this happen.”

Orwall’s leadership will bring desperately needed solutions to struggling homeowners in the form of her Foreclosure Fairness Act of 2011, which created the Foreclosure Mediation Program that could benefit the 45,000 families expected to receive foreclosure notices this year.

The new law will bring banks and homeowners to the table to explore alternatives to foreclosure. It will require lenders to notify borrowers prior to foreclosure of the availability of foreclosure counseling and the potential for mediation. Foreclosure counseling will help homeowners understand all of their options and determine the best course of action.

The Foreclosure Mediation Program will begin July 22, 2011. Homeowners who wish to participate in mediation must be referred by a housing counselor or an attorney. For more information please call the hotline: 1-877-894-HOME (1-877-894-4663), or visit the program’s website: http://www.commerce.wa.gov/site/1367/default.aspx

To read this blog post in Spanish, go here.